Review: Samsung Galaxy Note II

The Samsung Galaxy Note II takes off where the original Phablet left. With a larger display, all new quad-core processor, and a pumped up S-Pen, anyone who uses the Galaxy Note II is going to have their mind blown. When we first used the original Note, we were a bit skeptical about many of its key selling points. Isn’t it going to be too big for the hand? Why use a stylus? Is it a phone, or a tablet? Moreover, who really needs one?

Those were the questions that always made us criticise the concept of a phablet. But the Galaxy Note II completely changes the equation. It’s no more about the size now. You simply cannot ignore this thing. It is beautiful, fast, and more than anything you need. Without a doubt, you’ll be more than happy to own one, even if you have not been a supporter of larger displays.

Images via Samsung

So what powers the Galaxy Note II? Let’s checkout its specifications.

5.5inch 720x1280 HD Super AMOLED display

Corning Gorilla Glass 2

Exynos 4412 1.6Ghz quad-core processor

2GB RAM

16/32/64GB internal storage, expandable upto 64GB via MicroSD card

8mp camera with LED flash

1080p HD video recording

Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean

3100mAh battery

The Samsung Galaxy Note II is a beautiful device, and successfully changes the image of Samsung as a premium brand. The Note II’s thin bezel, hyper glazed back and slim profile make it look really elegant when holding it in your hand. The smartphone is still built out of plastic though, but has better build quality. It is heavier than previous devices, giving it a more premium feel. The Corning Gorilla Glass 2 adds to the device’s solidity. The glass is tapered at the edges, so the sides won’t make for an uncomfortable holding gesture anymore, and will allow better scrolling from side to side.

The first thing that will strike you when you hold the device in your hand is the huge and amazing display. The 5.5inch Super AMOLED HD display is absolutely beautiful. Colours are accurate, and text looks stunning.

But, all is not right with the design of this amazing handset. The special ‘hyperglaze finish’ on the back of the Galaxy Note II, although beautiful and makes the device feel very nice in the hand, yet it is very much prone to being scratched. You’d not want to leave this one on your desk without a case.

S-Pen: We were again like most of you, not very confident about how well Samung could make use of the stylus in a 21st century smartphone. But once again, Samsung proved us wrong, and has delivered a great addition to this already able device.

The S-Pen is capable of doing various tasks for you, the highlight of which, of course, is note taking, and boy does it do it exceptionally well! The Galaxy Note II responds to S-Pen’s input a lot faster than the previous Galaxy Note. It’s almost simultaneous now, which gives it a lot more natural feel. Writing also feels better, thanks to some new sort of friction happening between the tip of the S-Pen and the display.

Handwriting detection has also been greatly improved. It is a lot more faster and accurate now. You also get various productivity tools in the S Note app, which allow you to quickly and easily draw geometrical shapes, jot down mathematical formulas, and convert handwriting into text.

And how can we forget Air View? We don’t, as simple. So this thing is unique, and great! Though you could argue all day long on how useful this really is, but most people don’t know the juicy part. It’s not just the “pop open album previews in Gallery” and all that bling. The S-Pen Air View allows you to use it as a cursor throughout the UI, most distinctively in the web browsers. All these years, we have missed cursor-browsing websites on our smartphones and tablets, due to which accessing drop down menus on various websites such as ours, and even e-commerce websites has been a pain in the a**. But now, the Galaxy Note II changes it. With the Air View feature enabled, you can use the tiny cursor to quickly go through drop down menus and hover over links. This is more useful than you think it is.

Again, we never thought we would be using the S-Pen as much as we did. Every other second, we were popping the S-Pen out to browse around the device, because it’s just so good to use. Swiping across the display with the S-Pen just feels so good, you wouldn’t want to stop. In fact, we were so addicted to it, that when we switched devices and used the iPhone and other smartphones, our hands automatically tried to reach the bottom right corner of these handsets in search of the S-Pen, but unfortunately, encountered solid plastic instead.

Camera and Multimedia: The 8mp camera on the Samsung Galaxy Note II does a quite decent job. Pictures shot during daytime, with good lighting were amazing. But pictures clicked in poor lighting conditions pulled off some not so good results. Though you could use the LED Flash for better lighting, we are not big fans of clicking pictures that look like someone had a heavy duty torch in the other hand - it makes spot photography look like crap.

Web Browsing: The Samsung Galaxy Note II comes pre-loaded with both the Android browser and Google Chrome. Though Google Chrome is now the official web browser for Jelly Bean, Samsung still chose to bundle in the stock Android browser bundled in previous generation Galaxy smartphones.

Google Chrome on the Note II is probably the best mobile web browsing experience you have ever had. It is smooth, quick, and pages load up faster than normal. Moreover, the S-Pen Air View feature allows you to use a cursor on the display, which makes it easier to navigate around websites with drop down menus.

But not all’s well with the new Android 4.1 Jellly Bean. Adobe has unfortunately decided to drop Flash support from Android builds post Ice Cream Sandwich, therefore leaving you with just HTML5 support. As most websites are yet to switch over from Flash to HTML5 standards, the web browsing experience on certain websites feels incomplete. But worry not, there are some unofficial ways to install Adobe Flash on your Galaxy Note II, which you can find various tutorials on via Google/YouTube.

Gaming: The Samsung Galaxy Note II absolutely kills this category! Gaming on this device is off the charts! It’s probably the best a smartphone can offer. Be it low graphically intense games like Cut the Rope, or heavy CPU power suckers such as Asphalt 7, it runs them all amazingly well. And on top of that, the beautiful 5.5inch Super AMOLED HD display is like icing on the cake.

Conclusion: The Samsung Galaxy Note II is hands down the best Android smartphone in the market, and most probably even beats the iPhone 5 in many ways. The display is beautiful, and the build quality and design have really gone up a level, as Samsung have finally understood how to treat their flagship line of devices. Android 4.1 Jelly Bean probably adds more to the smartphone’s success than anything else. Jelly Bean brings to the table Project Butter, giving Android iOS like transitions and animations, and making the whole experience of using the device heavenly. Google Now is also a great addition, which is Google’s take at Siri, but in a different way. Google Now is way faster than Siri, and shows results in a lot more simplistic interface. Samsung have also included their own home cooked version of a personal voice assistant, S-Voice, that was barely able to please us. It is slow, not as accurate, and is definitely not ready for prime time.